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Environment and climate change
2015 was a historic year for multilateralism and for sustainable development seeing the adoption in September of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the successful conclusion of the 21 Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 21) with an agreement on a multilateral legal framework.
What do the European Union and the Smurfs have in common? Both identify with the colour blue, and both care deeply about the health of our blue planet. And now they are shaking hands to clean up beaches across the world and encourage people to protect our ocean!
Around 8 million tons of plastic enter the sea every year... mostly ending up on our beaches... Collective action is needed! Throughout the months of September and October, leading to the Our Ocean Conference in Bali, several EU Delegations worldwide were actively cleaning seashores and riverbanks together with their families, and locals and organisations who worked jointly to make our ocean a better place for marine life... These efforts have now been marked on the European Atlas of the Seas’ last “Map of the Week” for 2018!
In late November, the European Union Delegation to Iceland planted the first of 600 birch trees that it will plant at the Friendship Forest, near Thingvellir, 40 minutes outside Reykjavik, the site of the first Icelandic parliament more than a thousand years ago.
The UN climate conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, concluded with the adoption of a clear rulebook to make the Paris Agreement on climate change work in practice across the world. The completion of the rulebook was the EU's top objective in these negotiations.
The EU and its Member States are taking part in the UN climate change conference (COP24) currently being held in Katowice, Poland until 14 December.
A 30 second round up video of Climate, peace and security conference.
